SPOILERS: A Look At BATMAN's New Costume

Bruce Wayne returned as Batman in this week's Batman #50, and he brought a new suit with him. Although the first page teased several other costumes (even one with the classic "New Look" Batman yellow ellipse), when Bruce Wayne finally returned to action he did so in a new design by series artist Greg Capullo.

As seen at right, the new design carries on the more armored "New 52" look with the gloves and boots, but it also re-introduces yellow elements to the costume, with the Bat-logo and the utility belt both outlined in the classic complimentary color.

Credit: DC Comics

The new Bat-logo is also very similar to the one on James Gordon's Batman suit, however, Bruce Wayne's new design isn't on a flat black but rather a gray color.

Curiously, for most of the issue, the utility belt is black with a yellow outline, but there are some action shots where the utility belt appears completely yellow. That could simply be an oversight of the colorist, but another change occurs in the epilogue that we'll get to in a moment.

Credit: DC Comics

Batman's mask has also been updated, with a more domed look for the front that doesn't accentuate the nose as the previous design had. There's also a minor, but noticeable, receding cut in the lower half of the mask near the cheekbones.

In the epilogue story drawn by Yanick Paquette however, some of these elements seem closer to the previous design, specifically in the nose of the mask and the all-yellow utility belt. Whether or mot that's an intentional difference or just artistic interpretation remains to be seen.

During Capullo and Scott Snyder's Batman retrospective panel at C2E2, Snyder said that this new design would be Bruce Wayne's design across the DC line leading into Rebirth.

Just as Jim Lee's "New 52" design of Batman went through some small evolutionary steps as it went into use and through other artists' hands, Capullo's new Batman design looks to be very well doing the same.